Sequential nonabsorbing microwave single-photon detector

Abstract

We propose a nonabsorbing microwave single-photon detector that uses an artificial atom as a coherent interaction mediator between a traveling photon and a high-Q resonator, fully exploiting the knowledge of the photon's arrival time. Our proposal can be implemented with the current level of technology and achieves distinguishability (probability of distinguishing between zero and one photon) in excess of 98% for realistic parameters. This is better than any of the similar detector proposals, even the ones using several artificial atoms.